Low-Cost Method Generating In Situ Anaerobic Conditions on a 96-Well Plate for Microbial Fermentation in Food Research

• Published in: Journal of agricultural and food chemistry Vol. 66; no. 44; pp. 11839 - 11845
• Main Authors: Lam, Ka-Lung, Lin, Shaolin, Liu, Chaoran, Wu, Xiyang, Tang, Shuze, Kwan, Hoi-Shan, Cheung, Peter Chi-Keung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 07.11.2018
• Subjects: mineral oil; Oxyrase; 96-well plate; prebiotics; anaerobic condition; OVAMO; microbial fermentation
• ISSN: 0021-8561; 1520-5118
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.8b04888

Commercial tools and instruments have been developed for a screening study of microbial fermentation, but they are expensive and mostly confined to aerobic fermentation only. There is little development on the generation of anaerobic conditions directly on a 96-well plate. This report proposed a simple and versatile microbial fermentation system known as OVAMO that makes use of Oxyrase, vacuum, and mineral oil to generate an in situ anaerobic environment on a 96-well plate for at least 48 h. The practicality of OVAMO in anaerobic fermentation experiments used for functional food research was validated by a prebiotic screening study of different carbohydrates by Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis. The OVAMO system provides a less expensive but effective way to conduct a microbial fermentation screening study that requires anaerobic conditions without the need for atmospheric control by external devices.